Rajiv-Longwal accord stops short of finding a solution to Ravi-Beas river water problem

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Of all the issues be devilling an accord on the Punjab problem, none has proved more intractable than that of the distribution of Ravi-Beas river waters between Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan.

And even the latest accord stops short of finding a solution to this problem. While the final allocation of waters has been left to a tribunal headed by a Supreme Court judge, even the clause maintaining the existing usage of water by the various states has caused confusion and is open to various interpretations.

The agreement set the seal on the present usage of water by the three states from the Ravi-Beas system as on July 1, 1985. Water for drinking purposes would also remain unaffected but the conflicting claims over the remaining waters would be worked out by a tribunal headed by a Supreme Court judge.

The ruling would be delivered within six months and would be final and binding on all three states. The phrase "legal and binding" is a pointer to the conflicting claims and counter claims indulged in by politicians in the three states.

Thus, Akali negotiator Balwant Singh and even Longowal have declared that any solution by the tribunal would favour Punjab since it was already drawing 4.8 million acre feet (MAF) of water.

However, Haryana Chief Minister Bhajan Lal is equally enthusiastic since it does not affect the 3.5 MAF they are presently drawing and "since our need is more than 7 MAF, we shall get more," he says confidently.

As for the state of Rajasthan, the initial reaction of the Assembly was to unanimously reject the accord but Chief Minister Harideo Joshi rushed to Delhi and came back with the assurance that their share of 8 MAF would also remain unaffected.

Facts, however, have to be faced. The tribunal's award is bound to affect all three states to some extent or the other more so because the conflict runs deep. The Akalis have always taken the rigid stand that since Punjab is the sole riparian state, it alone has the right to the waters of the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej. They do concede to Haryana a share since it was once part of Punjab.

But the Centre maintains that since Rajasthan cannot get water from anywhere else, it has to get it from Punjab. As for Haryana, its canals are poorly developed and it gets little rain. Thus, when the first guidelines were issued for sharing river waters in 1955, Rajasthan was given 8 MAF, undivided PEPSU 7.2 MAF and Jammu & Kashmir 0.65 MAF.

Since then the Centre has always stuck to that formula while tilting slightly towards Punjab. The fruits of the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan - under which India got unrestricted rights to the use of those waters - were also divided between Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. Another agreement in 1976, more or less forced on the states by the Government during the Emergency, gave Punjab 3.5 MAF.

The Akalis protested and in 1981 a new agreement increased Punjab's share to 4.22 MAF. The Centre was quick to claim that this was a "fair and equitable" distribution but it cut no ice with the Akalis. Badal pointed out that 14.20 lakh hectares of land in the state were irrigated by canals, leaving over 20 lakh dependent on diesel-run tubewells. He even quoted the Narmada Award of 1974 which denied water from the Narmada river to Rajasthan since it was not a riparian state.

Irrigation experts of Punjab and Haryana have gone on record to state that it is very difficult to measure the exact quantum of flow down the Ravi-Beas system on any single day since it is a continuous one.

The usual practice, until now, has been to tabulate the total flow over a year divided by 365 days to get, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, the flow of a single day. Again, there is only a small canal taking about 1,200 cusecs of water from the Ravi with the rest of it flowing down to Pakistan. India has full claim to this water under the India-Pakistan Indus Water Treaty of 1960.

Obviously, until the Thein Dam comes up, all talk of utilising the remaining waters of the Ravi will remain notional. But there's more welcome news for Haryana. Construction work on the long-delayed Sutlej-Yamuna link (SYL) canal, on which the state has spent Rs 100 crore over the last decade and written off Rs 700 crore in crop losses, will be speeded up and is expected to be completed by August 15 next year.

On the question of territorial disputes, for the first time the principle of contiguity and linguistic affinity with a village as a unit has been recognised. Punjab gets the Chandigarh capital project area that comprises nearly 70 per cent of the Union territory.

The town of Mani Majra and the adjacent areas minus the Sukhna Lake - part of the Hindi region of composite Punjab - go to Haryana. A commission constituted with the help of linguistic experts will determine the remaining Hindi-speaking areas of Punjab, which will be transferred along with Chandigarh on Republic Day next year.

Other claims and counter claims for readjustment of the existing Punjab and Haryana boundaries will be gone into by another commission. Present indications are that some Punjab villages falling between Chandigarh and Haryana and a few other villages from Khanouri block of Patiala district adjoining Kurukshetra district will go to Haryana in lieu of Chandigarh.

The award of Mrs Indira Gandhi in January 1970 had given Chandigarh to Punjab, with Haryana getting the prosperous tehsils of Abohar and Fazilka. Chief Minister Bhajan Lal has gone on record to state that he would respect the award of the commission, but it is pretty clear that his troubles are going to take off once it comes through.

Large areas to which Haryana has been laying claim on the grounds that they are Hindi-speaking are now Punjabi-speaking. The last census saw many Hindus opt for Punjabi as their mother tongue instead of Hindi. As Haryana Lok Dal legislator Dr Bhim Singh Dahiya put it: "The linguistic basis goes against us unless the transfers are decided on the basis of the 1961 census."

The two blocks of Dehrabassi and Lalru of Patiala district, for instance, may choose to remain Punjabi. "We are all Punjabi and nobody will have the right to arbitrate over us," says Hukam Singh, a Hindu farmer from Bukhri village near Lalru.

His opinion is echoed by other farmers and traders of the two blocks since they feel their interests are better protected in Punjab which has even had a farmer as chief minister. Says trader Ram Nath: "We are Punjabis and shall remain in Punjab, we also have better trade prospects." These sentiments are echoed by many other people in the affected areas.

But whichever way the decision on territories goes, it will ultimately affect people, unsettle families and even lead to a minor exodus. In fact that problem will be the most pronounced in Chandigarh where thousands of Haryana Government employees have already begun thinking in terms of shifting to a new capital which has not yet come into being.

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